Thou shall not steal

2.

~THE LOUD HOUSE.~

"May una just manage this garri eh," Mummy said to my cousin; Dennis and Dexter.

Dennis is 7 and Dexter is 4, they are my maternal cousins. They moved in with us after the unfortunate and premature death of their father in a car accident.

"But we drank garri last night," little Dennis whined, "I don't want to drink garri again. I hate drinking garri."

Dennis and Dexter were used to the life of luxury, their father worked at an oil company when he was alive. They lived in a mansion, in a big and secure estate somewhere in town. However, after their father's tragic demise, their uncles took all they had from their family, little wonder why my Aunty—their mother—committed suicide, she too must've gotten used to the luxurious life.

"Dennis no vex nah. Abeg just drink small, eh?" My mother pleaded. She dished a spoonful of the garri from the stainless bowl in our midst to feed him.

He pushed the spoon away as he turned away and the garri splashed on the floor.

Mother just merely sighed. She always seemed like a different woman whenever she was handling them; so calm and polite but with me, if I was the one who spilt that garri on the floor, she would beat me senseless.

I turned away from them and dipped my spoon into the bowl again for another scoop.

The spoon that was a few centimetres from my mouth was sent flying into the air when mother slapped my hand. I quickly shrunk back in fear as I rubbed the back of my hand.

"You dey craze?" She raged, "you no see say I dey beg them to chop? Nah im you want come finish the whole food. Idiot!"

I quickly stood up from the circle to grab my spoon from where it fell but as I moved I didn't leave my back turned to her, I made sure to maintain eye contact because knowing mother she could pounce on me at any time.

"Rubbish," she cursed again, "Instead of you to give your food to this small pikin them may them chop, you wan make them starve just to feed you. You dey stay in house from morning to night, nothing wey you dey do? Nothing wey you fit do but you go dey do like say nah only you hungry dey catch. Fool."

Suddenly she snatched her slippers and shot it at my head. I dodged it and whimpered as I did.

"Come on get out of here, pig!" She yelled.

I rushed out of her sight to the other corner of the room. I felt like crying but would it do?

Her insults and the fact that she always transferred the aggression from a bad day at her job on me wasn't news to me.

Yet it hurt. I hugged my knees and sat in the distance while watching her feed my cousins our dinner of soaked garri. She cheered them on with every spoon they took and once they were done, she asked me to wash the plates for them.

We usually washed the dishes outside so, I walked out of the house to fetch some water from the black water drum beside our house and taking a small bar soap on the floor. I washed the stainless steel plate and spoon clean.

After washing the plate, I just stared down at the silver plate in my hand, it seemed to shine bright under the moonlight. The moonlight illuminated what I and the plate had in common, the fact that we were both empty.